14 DAY TRIAL // Mustafa Al-Bassam, 21, founding and former member of LulzSec under the alias tFlow, will be joining UK-based online payments firm Secure Trading on a role of security adviser.
Al-Bassam will be joining Secure Trading in a part-time job, which would allow him to finish his education in computer science at King’s College London.
The reformed hacker's official role will be of security adviser, and he'll be working on Secure Trading's new project called Trustery, set to integrate blockchain technology in online payment systems.
Blockchains are the base technology on which most of today's cryptocurrencies work, such as Bitcoin or Litecoin. In the past years, governments and financial institutions have been looking into the idea of integrating blockchains into their systems since the technology is ideal for improving the security and authenticity of data storage and records-keeping applications.
"Working with Secure Trading I want to develop tools to make online payments safer,” said Al-Bassam in an official statement. "The financial services industry has traditionally been a few years behind the curve when it comes to security practices."
Five years later, tFlow's life is about to get so much better
Al-Bassam founded LulzSec when he was 16, in early 2011, together with other notorious hackers, such as Sabu and Topiary, but by July 2011, he was arrested by British police. His real name wasn't released for two more years because he was a minor.
He pleaded guilty and received a suspended 20-month prison sentence, 500 hours of community work, and a two-year ban from using the Internet.
Al-Bassam's hiring comes only two days after another famous hacktivist known under the moniker of GhostShell had doxed himself, revealing his real identity. The hacker justified his actions as a way to give law enforcement a helping hand in order to get prosecuted, serve his sentence, and then get hired by a cyber-security company so he could live a stress-free life and have a legitimate job.